With beautiful photographs, great recipes, humour and lots of educational material from all different sources, the SPAG (Single Person Approved by God) magazine has really come into its own. This quarter they tackle a whole range of issues: from grief to masturbation and from public justice to slavery.
Christian Today writer Sam Manchester writes an article explaining what makes Christians different. It is the 'Freedom of Restrictions' as he calls it, which sets Christians apart. As Christians, we have the freedom of choice but we also have the freedom to make the right choice.
When people scoff at the laws of God, we need to be reminded that restrictions are good for us. "Almost no one wants to live in a society where there are no laws—that would be anarchy. But it is the very presence of laws that afford us the freedom to work a job without fear of exploitation, or have surgery with confidence of safe practice, or even walk the street at night with some assurance you won't be murdered for no reason."
Build up your spiritual strength by abstaining
Vicki Nunn takes Sam Manchester's premise a step further in her feature about masturbation. She goes into detail about sexual sins as the Bible views them and concludes that while we have our liberty, the more we indulge in the small things like masturbation, the more difficult it becomes to control.
Vicki tells us: "the desire to masturbate will pass, as every single one of our sinful urges will eventually pass." There is an excellent diagram in there about control and how resistance builds up our spiritual strength.
In relation to this, Vicki goes onto explain the necessity of the whole armour of God. Building up our spiritual strength can only come about when we are daily prepared to do battle for God. Discipline is a major focus of this issue and it's something that can't be reiterated enough. Discipline is necessary for a godly lifestyle and good for society as a whole.
With great freedom comes great responsibility
With this freedom of ours, we need to be careful how we use it in order to not hurt other people. In another article titled: Modern Day Slavery: What Can We Do? itconfronts us with the thought that we have probably contributed to slavery without being aware of it.
Thankfully, there are things we can do to change the situation with worldwide slavery. We can fundraise and raise awareness, stop supporting companies that use slaves, write to those companies and pray. Plus there are a host of other organisations that aim to stop slavery that we can support.
We all have a duty to use our freedom in Christ to stand up for those brothers and sisters in the world who do not have their freedom.
Raising awareness for single people
Last up in issue four, Vicki explains some of her drive with creating SPAG magazine: "The articles in SPAG Magazine are designed to help singles deal with their issues or to recognise areas where they need to change."
You can subscribe to the Single Person Approved by God magazine at www.spagmag.com.
Bridget Brenton has been researching apologetics, philosophy and the paranormal for years. You can check her apologetic effort out at 101arguments.com
Bridget Brenton's previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/bridget-brenton.html